Cold Dead Past (20 page)

                                                        CHAPTER 34

The ride out to the Palmer place that afternoon gave Jay a lot of time to think.  It was funny how a little knowledge can change perspective.   The black and white world he had always thought of as reality was just a collective dream hiding the Technicolor nightmare of the truth.  All the people they passed on the way out of town and along the road were asleep.  He envied them.

Meg was asleep at Jay's side, her head resting on his shoulder.  He could see Gary, every once in a while, stealing a look at them in the rear-view mirror.

It must have been hard for Gary to deal with, his return and taking up with Meg after all those years.  He never said a word, but the jealousy was there.  Jay wondered whether it might cause problems later on when they were really going to need each other.

He couldn’t blame him, really.  Gary shouldered heavy responsibilities every day. Jay had tried to avoid them as much as possible.  Jay realized, now, that some burdens were hard to handle without someone to share the weight.  Meg’s soft, warm breaths against his neck and knowing that she was near was what made things bearable for him.  He had taken that away from Gary.

By the time they had reached the end of the driveway, low, dark gray clouds had covered the valley with a lid from hilltop to hilltop.  There were six inches of new snow on the roadway to the house.  Gary had been wise to trade in his pursuit cruiser for one of the department’s SUVs.

"Here we are," announced Gary, as they pulled into the driveway.  It was a long road, past the new ranch-style house; there were times when the tires of the SUV slipped and the engine strained, even in low gear, as it rolled through the snow.  On both sides of the roadway were old banks of plowed snow high enough and close enough, at times, to induce feelings of claustrophobia.

Gary did his best to keep the truck on a straight path. In their rush, they seemed to hit every slick patch on their route.  When that happened, the big SUV would carom from one bank to the other, hitting hard and shaking them all in their seats.  The first few times, Meg just rolled with the punches and kept dozing.  The last one, though, threw them hard against their safety belts and she woke up with a start.

Jay slipped his arm around her shoulder and gave her a pat on the back.  He caught another one of those looks from Gary.  "Sorry, folks," he said.  He sounded very unconvincing.

Crows were the only living things that Jay saw once they left the county road.  They were flying up high and their black forms, wings outstretched, stood out against the clouds like a field of crosses.  It wasn’t his idea of a good omen.

His doubts about the ease with which they would be able to carry out their mission were strengthened when they arrived at the gate of the old farm house lot. Jay was still absent-mindedly watching the blank, white landscape go by when Gary skidded to a stop and almost ran through the old barbed wire fence. Meg let out a loud gasp and poked Jay hard in his ribs.

He yelped, "What the fuck?" and turned to see her pointing toward the front windshield.

 
What he saw, set on one of the gateposts, was the bloody, flayed skull of a deer, its tongue lolling out from between skinned jaws in a sort of grotesque grin.

Frank had been here, all right. It was just the kind of warning they should have expected.  Jay was reminded of those stories of psychopathic children who liked to torture their family pets and grew up to become sociopathic serial killers.

Gary backed the truck up and they passed through the broken-down gate in silence, grimly determined.  There was no time now for fear.

When they pulled up in front of the old house, it was a shadow of Jay’s memories.  It never seemed so bleak and dead when he was young.  A slight breeze caused a dusting of sugary powder to blow down from the roof as Gary opened his door and stepped out of the vehicle.

He stood, leaning on the open door, surveying the scene for a moment before he turned to them and said, "Well?  Come on, wake up."

Jay jumped when Gary slammed the door.  He opened the rear hatch and there was a burst of dry, cold air that caused Jay to shiver. He reached past Meg to open her door and gave her a shove.

"Watch it," she growled.

Jay piled out of the SUV and went around to the back, where Gary had pulled out the bag full of tricks and the spear gun. He looked like Poseidon, back from the supermarket.  Jay almost laughed.

Gary pushed the bag into his chest and Jay just had time to catch it before it could fall to the ground at his feet.  He held out the spear gun and beamed an insincere smile.

"Sorry ‘bout that.  Take this thing.  I think as the only armed person here…"  Jay shook the spear gun at him and scowled.  "Like I said, as the only armed person here, I should kinda keep my hands free."  Gary slipped his hand down to the ten millimeter pistol holstered on his belt. His fingers ran along the grip and gave it a familiar caress.

Jay resisted the impulse to act the smartass and ask him what good the handgun would be against someone like Frank, who had already been able to take out a deputy armed with a shotgun.

Instead, he said, "Sure.  Makes sense.  No problem."

Jay looked up from the spear gun and saw that Gary’s eyes had moved on to something else.  When Jay followed his sightline, and found Meg, stretching and standing next to the open rear door.  She turned to smile at Jay and when she did, Gary’s eyes cast down before he turned his attention back to Jay.

Jay stood back and took a good look at the house. It was a pale ghost of what he remembered from his childhood days around the pond.  The wooden clapboard had taken on a silvery tone, stripped of its paint by years of exposure and lack of care.

A few broken panes of glass had turned into entire windows.  Someone had made an attempt at boarding up the empty spaces, but had given up when they had reached the second floor. The cold, scouring wind had blown away all but a light dusting of snow on the broken, humped jumble that was left of the concrete front walk.

 
Jay slipped on a patch of ice and would have fallen if Meg hadn’t been there to steady him from behind.  She locked her arm around his and they walked arm-in-arm up the warped stairs to the rotting, wooden front porch.  The screen door hung open and tilted on one hinge.

Gary jiggled the knob on the front door and gave it a push.  Years of weathering had caused it to stand askew in the frame and jammed it against the latch.  He had to give it a good shove with his shoulder. It dragged and scraped along the front hall floor as he pushed his way in.

"Anyone wants to back out, say so now."

Jay and Meg stood mute.

"Okay, then."

Gary was the first through the door. Almost immediately there were the sounds of splintering wood and something like a bag of cement hitting the floor.

"Son of a bitch!"

Jay and Meg stepped through the doorway and found Gary struggling to pull his leg from a jagged gap in the floor. A couple of boards had collapsed under his weight and were holding it tight.

He extended his hand to Jay, who passed the bag and spear gun to Meg.  "I was going to say ‘be careful’.  Give a hand here, will ya?"

Jay struggled to suppress a laugh as he said, "I thought that you guys looked this place over."

Gary grunted. "We did. We just didn't come in through the front door. I figured that this way would be easier for Meg."

Jay took hold of his arm to steady him.  Gary was able to rip away what remained of the boards and free himself.  Jay pulled him back up onto his knees, where he rested, breathing heavily.    He looked up at Jay and said, "Thanks. You just saved me from a broken leg or worse."  He climbed to his feet and brushed himself off before muscling the front door shut with a "bang".  The thought occurred to Jay that it was the only sound he had heard since they had gotten out of the truck.

"All right," said Gary, "The spot that Abe picked is back here.  Hand me one of those flashlights in the bag there."

Jay rummaged around in the shopping bag and pulled out a couple of flashlights.  He handed one over to Gary. He switched on the other one and played it around the entryway.  The only other light was a multi-colored sliver that came in through a boarded-up stained glass window at the top of the stairs.  It began to peter out about halfway down the stairs and left the area by the front door in a dusky murk. The flare from his flashlight winked on a ragged sofa that was jammed into the hallway ahead.  Filled with holes and surrounded by piles of soiled stuffing, it appeared to have been home to dozens of generations of mice.

Gary gave the end of the sofa a hard kick to move it out of the way so that he could avoid the hole in the floor.  It raised a cloud of dust that sparkled and shimmered kaleidoscopically in the fingers of light from the window. 

Gary turned on his own flashlight and turned to them. "It’s best to avoid the basement or the second floor.  We need a way out in case things go wrong."

Jay took the grocery bag. Meg fell in to a safe position between the two men as they made their way through the detritus strewn and piled in the hallway.  Old magazines, newspapers, books, all of which had been fouled and gnawed by mice and rats.  Except for this evidence, it was if every critter in the house had fled.

Meg moved the spear gun into a port arms position and spoke, almost in a whisper, "Have either of you noticed?  Shouldn't there be some mice?"

Winter melt water from the leaky roof had soaked through the plaster ceiling and run down the walls, leaving stalactites and grotesque sculptures that flowed down onto the floor.  Meg tripped on a frozen-together pile of TV Guides. When her hand went out to the wall to brace against a fall, she could feel the fur of old-growth mold and fungus.  It made her grimace and Jay took her hand in his. They passed a door. Jay rattled the old, cast-metal doorknob, with its intricate leafy design.

"What’s in here?"

Gary turned around and shone his light on the knob. "Well," he replied, "a broken arm.  That’s the way to the basement.  The stairs are gone and if you open that door, you’re going to step out into a whole lot of nothing."

Meg pulled Jay away from the door.  There was no sense in one of them going out in such an ignominious way when something much grander was about to rise up to meet them.

The kitchen windows over the sink had been boarded up tight, leaving just the slightest chinks between the boards.  It was as dark as a tomb. The solid look to the wood was deceptive. Gary reached up and grabbed the edge of one of the boards and it broke off in his fingers. They had been eaten through by termites. He was able to crush a piece of the wood to dust in his hands.

He punched through the rest of the boards with his fist. A dusty, blue light filled the room revealing a scarred and ripped battleship linoleum floor, ancient painted metal cabinets, and a Formica-topped built-in table against the opposite wall.  He ripped what remained of the wood out and dumped it into the rust-stained sink.

Meg looked around at the piles of old lathe and plaster from the walls and ceiling and the fallen cabinet doors.  She unconsciously moved closer to Jay and tightened her hold on his hand.

Jay walked over to the empty window frame. "I can see the pond and the boathouse from here.  I can’t believe no one ever bought this up."

Meg interjected, "I’ve been working on a deal.  There’s a company that wants to buy the pond for condos."

Jay turned to take another look out over the pond.  He couldn’t imagine it as the center of a development full of boxes owned by city vacationers.  Not this place.

He took a last look at the dazzling white that stretched out to the dim, forested hills and shook his head.  "Come on.  We’d better get going.  It’ll be dark soon."

Gary led them through an arched entryway into the dining room.  A large hole had been broken through the wall that separated it from the old parlor.  The broken glass from a large bay window glittered and sparkled in the dying rays of the sun.  The large, tarnished brass chandelier that had once hung over family dinners was now dangling cocked at an odd angle.  Jay was surprised to see that some enterprising soul hadn't ripped it out and sold it.  It was the kind of authentic Americana that the new residents of Haddonfield paid good money for.  That was the export of small towns now, wasn’t it?

Jay took the spear gun from Meg and set it and the bag on the floor next to the old, sway-backed dining room table.

"Have you got the book?" he asked.

Gary reached into his jacket and pulled it out of an interior pocket.  The red flames on the tips of the pentacle on the cover glowed cherry red like fireplace embers. He held it up so that Jay could see it.

Jay took the book and flipped to a page with a three-by-five sticky note stuck to it and pulled the sheaf of folded-up writing paper Gary had given him from one of his pockets.  He set the book down on the table top and took the flashlight from Meg. After a short browse through the papers, he settled on one in particular and stood reading it for a moment before turning to the others.

"These notes Abe made talk about a large circle and a pentagram."

 
He slipped his flashlight under his arm and grabbed the edge of the table.  As he dragged it to a spot against one of the walls, its metal claw feet gouged channels into the wide pine floorboards and ripped up the rotted woolen carpet.